Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Born in May 1991, Duchess Dean Jones was a gift from my sister Lory. She was seven weeks old when I brought her home and she had me wrapped around her little paw immediately. My mother never liked cats but between Duchess and Sam (my sister's cat) she was won over. The "Dutch Kitty" as she called her made it her job to keep an eye on her after her surgery.

She greeted me at the door when I came home from work, if I was late she let me know it. She loved to play and she loved to watch the birds that perched in the trees outside the bedroom window. She even tried talking to them and made pretty good chirping sounds for a cat...lol

While Sam was with us she let him do all the talking, unless tuna was involved then she became very vocal. When Sam left us she decided she had better speak up and we had many, many conversations throughout the years. Although she was a cat, she seemed more human than a lot of humans I knew.

Although she hated car trips (I imagine she thought she was going to the dreaded vet) she rode shotgun on the move to Michigan. She became quite comfortable at the Motel 6 (pet friendly) and it was probably because all the rooms we stayed in looked exactly the same. Once she got to the farm she had a whole new group of animals to watch. Geese, sheep, dogs, baby chicks...she watched them all. To my amazement the cat who ran and hid until she decided she liked someone quickly showed her trust to my husband. Obviously she knew a good guy when she saw him.

Even more amazing was the relationship she developed with Mist the Border Collie. None of my friends would believe she shared a home with a dog, let alone went nose to nose with her without pitching a fit and baring claws, but she did. I attributed it to mellowing a lot in her old age.

Unfortunately, that old age caught up with her. She lost the hearing in her right ear shortly after her 18th birthday but she adapted well. Later on she started showing other signs of her age and in the past week it all started going rapidly downhill. I spent as much time with her as I could holding her and talking to her. She left us this morning at 7:20am while I held her. She was 19 years old but she was and always will be my green eyed, pink nosed kitty girl.

There are a lot of stories and memories and I will treasure them forever. She was there during the good and the bad. She kept me sane. She was a joy every second that she was alive and I'm going to miss her for the rest of my life.

About Me

If there's one thing I've learned it's that you never know what is going to happen in life.
So here's a new year, a new start and a new commitment to my crafting. I'm hoping it will help me to find my "new normal"